Brand activation is the next big thing

Ask marketing services executives what businesses in the troubled
Photon Group
they would like to buy and most mention the advertising agencies BMF and Belgiovane Williams Mackay, communication planning firm Naked and retail “field" marketing company The Bailey Group.

The inclusion of Bailey, the largest company in Photon’s Australian field marketing division, underlines the growing importance marketing companies are placing on “brand activation", that is, reaching consumers after they have seen a traditional ad campaign and before they make a buying decision.

For
STW Communications Group
, the search for new skills in the “brand activation" area led to it buying part of Queensland-based retail field marketing company Quality National Team and setting up a joint venture here with South African field marketing business Smollan Group over the past three months.

STW chief executive Mike Connaghan said the company had “real grunt" in “brand activation" creative areas with companies such as ­Evocatif, Punch and OgilvyAction, and the mystery shopping and retail auditing areas with Hoed and CBS. Field marketing was the missing link in its “brand activation" strategy.

Mr Connaghan said STW would expand Quality National Team, which is a minor rival to Bailey and other large field marketing companies such as Crossmark, CPM and Creative Activation, by winning new clients and tapping the skills of Smollan, which has offices in South ­Africa, China, Malaysia, India and Britain.

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“Success in field marketing is ­reliant, in part, on having good technology to track in-store campaigns, ­report back to clients and so on," Mr Connaghan said. “Smollan has very good technology."

Y&R Brands is another marketing services company keen to add “brand activation" businesses.

“All our clients are looking at the last 10 feet, that is, finding ways to directly influence consumers when they are in stores deciding what products to buy, on websites searching for information, and so on," said Hamish McLennan, the New York-based Australian global chief executive of Y&R Brands, which is owned by WPP Group (London-based WPP’s interests also include 20.6 per cent of STW and 33 per cent of Smollan).

Last year Y&R Brands set up an alliance with US company Mars Shopper Marketing to improve its clients’ in-store marketing campaigns.

“We’re helping Mars expand beyond the US with some of our clients, including Colgate-Palmolive," Mr McLennan said.

“WPP has retail creative agencies, plus retail strategy and analytics companies. Retail field marketing is the next stage."

Clemenger Group’s decision to invest in Engage, a new “customer contact" business set up by direct marketing guru Kevin Panozza and his son Aaron late last year, was driven by a strategy to expand its “brand activation" interests, which include 56 per cent of Creative Activation.

“Brand activation will be the biggest growth component of our group over the next few years," Clemenger executive chairman Robert Morgan said (Clemenger owns 40 per cent of Engage).

“Its importance will increase as the ability of traditional media advertising to grab consumers diminishes," he said.